Hot Summer Nights (2017) - Chalamet shines in Bynum's far from profound debut

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The smooth, hairless visage of twinkie headliner Timothée Chalamet with his signature lazy-horny stare, against a colorful horizon make up this stylized poster for Elijah Bynum's Hot Summer Nights

A young man is to spend the summer with his aunt in Cape Cod, Massachusetts in 1991, and there he soon becomes a business partner and friend of the local pusher.

 

Hot Summer Nights is written and directed by debuting Elijah Bynum (One Dollar (2018, TV-series), writer)).

Right before lecturing the world on the tragic consequences of drug dependence (in Beautiful Boy (2018)), the then fumbling Timothée Chalamet (Wonka (2023)), - yet before his breakthrough in Call Me By Your Name (2017), - just wanted to entertain with drugs viewed as a product like any other. There is a vibe of braindead consumerism about this film, which is thickly sauced in hit songs and unnecessary narration (from a random other boy in the vacation spot apparently...) Another part of the vibe is the way the young stars are peddled as irresistibly sexy by Bynum and cinematographer Javier Julia (Argentina, 1985 (2022)).

The attempt hardly succeeds in a dour and unexciting story that is lacking in contemporary relevance. Despite the sexy young Chalamet this is a poor call of a film. 

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Unknown, projected 3 mil. $

Box office: 246k $ (international gross only); 300k $ projected final gross

= Box office disaster (projected return of 0.1 times its cost)

[Hot Summer Nights premiered 13 March (South by South West Film Festival) and runs 107 minutes. Shooting took place in Georgia and Massachusetts. The film's North-American gross has been kept secret, - it must be tiny, - and the film only has public gross numbers from 3 markets: Russia with 141k $, South Korea with 89k $ and Lithuania with 15k $. If made on a conservatively put 3 mil. $ budget, the film would rank as a box office disaster. Bynum returned with Magazine Dreams (2023). Chalamet returned in Lady Bird (2017); Maika Monroe (Villains (2019)) in The Scent of Rain & Lightning (2017); and Alex Roe (The 5th Wave (2016)) in Forever My Girl (2018)). Hot Summer Nights is rotten at 44 % with a 5.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Hot Summer Nights? 

Wild Tales/Relatos Salvajes (2014) - Szifron's mischievous, Argentinian anthology smash

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+ Best Argentinian Movie of the Year + Best Anthology of the Year

Three of the main characters of Damián Szifron's Wild Tales act out their inner animal in three situations from the film on this poster

Wild Tales presents six wild tales, fateful or karmic stories of uncommon yet still more or less realistic circumstances, wherein modern life seemingly pushes characters to act out in impulsively animalic, violent ways.

The three first stories of this anthology, SPOILER (the passengers stuck in the airplane; the restaurant murder and the strife between the two motorists), are only so-so successful, but they do establish the pitch black style of Wild Tales effectively. - And the following three tales are excellent; SPOILER the parking dogmatist, the DUI death and finally the wedding story, which must surely rate as the year's movie wedding. This story is especially memorable and hilarious; a bizarre example of how you absolutely will not want your wedding to pan out.
Wild Tales is self-assured and playfully made; it deliberately tricks our expectations more than once and also throughout denies us the luxury of having characters to feel bad for, which is rather smart of its Argentinian writer-director Damián Szifron (The Bottom of the Sea/El Fondo del Mar (2003)).
Wild Tales is a dark, funny, cheeky anthology of what could be termed someone's worst home-videos, presented cinematically.

Related posts:

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office: 30.6 mil. $
= Huge hit
[Wild Tales premiered 17 May (Cannes) and runs 122 minutes. Szifron based his script on a series of short stories he had begun writing in 2007. 70 % of the financing came from Argentina and the remaining 30 % from Spain. Filming took place in Argentina, including in Buenos Aires. The film opened #42 to an 85k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #20 and in 122 theaters (different weeks), grossing 3.1 mil. $ (10.1 % of the total gross). The film's biggest market was its native Argentina with 11.7 mil. $ (38.2 %) (although another source claims it made as much as 17.5 mil. $ in the country.) It broke the opening weekend record with sales of 450k tickets there, which grew to reportedly 3.9 mil. tickets, becoming the most seen Argentinian film in the country to date. The 2nd biggest market was Spain with 4.3 mil. $ (14.1 %), and North America was the 3rd biggest market. The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, lost to Pawel Pawlikowski's great Ida. It won a BAFTA, 10 out of 21 nominations at the Argentinian Motion Picture Academy, a David Di Donatello nomination, 1 win out of 9 Goya Awards nominations, a National Board of Review award and many other honors. The film currently stands at #186 on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, between Life of Brian (1979) and Platoon (1986). Wild Tales is certified fresh at 95 % with an 8/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Wild Tales?